


becoming habit

by anstaar



Series: becoming habit [2]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Children, F/F, F/M, Multi, Threesome - F/F/M, Uniforms, backround warefare, culture clash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:25:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anstaar/pseuds/anstaar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which a life is lived (more or less)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in which Xav Vorbarra learns to live in sin (or how to move in without meaning to)

The first time Xav visited their apartment it was two days after Ro skipped class to show an awkward foreigner in a coffee shop how to catch his train. It wasn't a class that she had enjoyed very much but she still hadn't been be that surprised when she found herself lurking outside the very new Barrayaran Embassy (a few cramped rooms on level fifteen with a hastily attached sign wasn't even the worst embassy she'd seen). After all, lying to your, even lies of omission, wasn't very Betan. Xav looked a lot more surprised to see her but also rather pleased and faintly red (and not just from his sunburn) and very cute in his uniform. She looped an arm around his waist and announced that he was coming back to her place for some lunch. He held himself stiffly, walked weirdly and his uniform was far too thick for comfort but he followed and he smiled and that was good enough for a second meeting.       
  
By the time they had arrived at the apartment, Lucy had already picked up a pizza. That first afternoon Xav stood in the doorway and examined everything. He looked at the cramped apartment saw the piles of data chips and the disorganized stack of boxes and Lucy. Later (after she learned a lot more about Barrayar and Xav and their certain expectations of Beta Colony) she realized that he had thought they were going to have sex. This is such a ridiculous idea that when she first understood what his confusion had meant she almost out loud. She hadn't known anything about him then. He could have liked men or hermaphrodites or no one or just not been into her. Beyond that, he was a Barrayaran and as such unlikely to have taken even the most basic class. Still, they ate pizza (which Xav had never seen before and insisted on slicing into thin strips with his belt knife, Ro thinking of how hard it must of been to get that through customs) together. Lucy told funny stories about her customers, Ro defended philosophy as a major and Xav managed to ask whether they would both like to go out to dinner someday soon with only the slightest hint of awkwardness.     
  
Food became a theme for their meetings. They went out to dinner the next day and ended up laughing so hard that Xav accidentally spat out some of his wine and they staggered out of the restaurant choking and spluttering. Ro took him to her favorite coffee shop (three levels lower than the one they'd first met in and with much better lighting) and taught him how to read earrings without blushing. Lucy carried him off for several hours on each of her days off and on Ro's birthday she was surprised with a hand cooked breakfast in bed which they ate together in their pajamas. They went for a picnic at the zoo and Xav told them what it was like to stare out over unlimited stretches of water. Food was also why Xav's things began to show up in their apartment.   
  
First to arrive was the apron. Ro had found it in a bazaar and she bought it because it was decorated with giant pink hearts and Barrayaran ideas of masculinity always made her laugh. She liked Xav because he laughed too and he wore the apron, even if he left it hanging on the back of the kitchen door when he left the apartment. The he brought over a change of clothes because Lucy insisted that however well he filled out his uniform it was  _not_  the proper outfit for eating curry, especially for someone with as bad hand eye coordination as Xav (which led to a pillow fight for Xav's honor and then to the three of them lying together, exhausted, on the carpet) and student loans meant they shouldn't be wasting money on the absurd cleaning fees of ancient garments. It didn't get serious until the uniform.  
  
Xav had a strange relationship with Barrayar. Personally Ro thought that everything to do with Barrayar, especially the people, was strange and Xav represented the strangeness at its utmost. They had known each other for five months for five months before he had even told them who his father was. They had been relaxing in the living room when Lucy had asked why Xav was part of the diplomatic envoy to one of the more important planets. Ro had been the one to wonder about it first. Xav was nice but even a newly rediscovered planet had to have some actual diplomats. Ro had mentioned her thought to Lucy who had, as always, gone for the direct approach and just asked him. Finding out they had barbarian royalty in their living room was made much funnier with the direct application of alcohol, followed by half an hour of listening to Xav trying to explain his family tree. It was still slightly odd. Ever stranger were Xav's self-deprecating remarks about diplomats versus soldiers and bastards and his 'Betan habits' (a comment she had a sneaking suspicion she should smack him for). It would take far more than the basic required therapy classes to try to figure out his issues, even if at times they seemed rather obvious, but it would take a lot of effort to miss how important the uniform was to him.      
  
Lucy had suggested that it was because the uniform was representational of everything that made what should have been simple about their relationship complex. That had been after Ro had suggested that they set fire to the uniform. Of course, the whole line of their conversation had been prompted by the not-argument with Xav. That had started when Ro had pointed out that it had been a year since they met. Lucy had, of course, suggested (only half jokingly) that the one year anniversary was the perfect time for him to move in. Xav had then told them a long and involved story that basically boiled down to that fact that if he was on Barrayar, which was  _obviously_  the right place to be, his marriage would probably be arranged at that very moment to a woman who would never even talk a male unless five other women (and possibly her mother) were present. That had been when Ro had suggested that it was time for him to go back to work.    
  
Xav had said many stupid things before that argument. Most of the time, Ro was just glad he said stuff to them instead of to, for example, the president (sometimes she was pretty sure he knew exactly what they would think about what he said but still wanted to get a Betan reaction). Occasionally it was worth it for the pure ridiculousness of his statements, like when he had seriously assured them that Barrayar just didn't  _have_  lesbians or, in fact, any women with sexual interests that didn't dovetail with tall men in very snazzy uniforms. Still, it was very hard to have a relationship argument with someone who seemed half in denial to the fact that they were in a relationship. Burning the uniform wouldn't really have helped but Ro thought it might at least make her feel better. Then Xav had brought it over.  
  
It was about a week after they hadn't had the argument (a week where they just happened not to talk with Xav or eat with him or even seen him) and Ro was considering the cost of kicking down the door versus the fact that her day had been far too long to deal with their ancient lock. That was when Xav appeared and opened the door for her, making him a semi-hero in her eyes despite the fact that he was  _still_ wearing a shirt and pants under his sarong. He was also toting a cart with a large wrapped object and several parcels. He never ended up apologizing but the parcels turned out to contain his uniform (and an ironing board which he insisted was better than the crisper) and a spare pillow for the sofa, so this time they let it go unsaid.


	2. how to woo lovers and influence them

They had sex for the first time a little after Xav's twenty-third birthday. Afterwards they curled together on the bed and Ro mentally sighed at the fact that Xav was still tense, even then.   
  
"Well," Lucy said, "it's a good thing we waited two years. Now we're really sure we like you, even if you are completely terrible in bed." This, for some twisted reason that Ro didn't particularly want to contemplate, actually made Xav relax.  
  
"Hey," he said, trying to sound offended but not bothering to stop stroking Ro's hair, "I went to that class, even if I still can't believe you got me  _that_  for my birthday. Ro laughed because Xav's face at the sight of the chip marking his enrollment in 'Fun Sex for Foreigners' was still in the running for the funniest face she had ever seen him make.  
  
"Seriously, if you had to be all Greek and abandoning defenseless children to the wilderness about life, you could of at least brought in a little bit of the sexual training idea," Lucy continued.  
  
"Only a Betan would know the sexual practices of an Earth culture that has been gone for centuries," Xav said.  
  
"Only a Barrayaran would memorize every battle from a world and not even know how to say hello in their main language," Lucy shot back and Ro drifted off to sleep to the sound of their familiar arguments.   
  
In reality, not much had changed. Xav moved from the couch to the bed. They started to seriously discuss whether they could afford, or even needed, a larger apartment. Xav's stunner went into the second draw and his knife (it turned out to have taken him five hours to get it through customs) was tucked away on the bookshelf next to Lucy's old school data chips (she always protested that she might need them some day when Ro tried to clean up). A picture of two solemn little boys joined ones of Lucy laughing with her parents and Ro standing with her uncle at her cousins' graduation on the bedside table. Xav swept the apartment for bugs three times a week and sometimes laughed at Lucy's more ridiculous jokes about Barrayaran culture.  
  
Sometimes, though, everything felt very different. It could have just been the passage of time. Xav's hair had grown out to almost Betan normal (incredibly self-indulgent for a Barrayaran) and he moved as quickly as any Betan when the storm warnings started blaring. He could joke about property takes and rolled his eyes in unison with Ro at the over dramatic headlines covering various political scandals. Still, he reached out for them now, instead of curling further into himself, and told stories about his childhood and could laugh while he said, 'I love you.'   
  
Ro liked sex. She liked it quite a lot, actually, and it was even better, in her opinion, with people who knew and loved her. It was still just sex. She had loved Joni and had been loved in return without the fact that the other woman didn't have, and never would, any interest in having sex with her ever coming up. She had also spent the last eight years or so of her life arguing philosophic concepts (something she was no longer allowed to do in the apartment). She had taken up her professor's challenge and spent three hours talking with complete strangers about million year old ideas. She still wouldn't try explaining this to Xav. She loved him but there were certian thing she wasn't sure that he would ever truly understand, however Betan he got. She loved him, though, so it was okay.   
  
A few months before Ro was set to graduate Xav was called back to Barrayar. Ro kissed him goodbye at his shuttle (Lucy had wished him a good trip that morning with a laughing reminder that one of them had to work) and didn't ask when he was coming back. They had never really talked about what would happen if Xav had to return to Barrayar forever. It had been five years since Barrayar regained contact with the outside world. Things could change in five years but Ro doubted that Barrayar would have changed enough. He had left behind most of his things in the apartment and they let them stay without a word.   
  
Ro loved Lucy. She loved her and could live with her alone but it was different without Xav and she missed him. He wasn't the only one who had changed. Their lives fit together now. With him gone there was no one to talk with early in the morning as she prepared for class and he straightened his clothes for his embassy's inspection. Lucy didn't have someone who enjoyed getting into pointless arguments that held no real heat. Even the shopping schedule felt wrong without him there to complain about the expense of fresh fruit and mutter about the lack of meat.   
  
Xav came back in a little over eight week (this left only a few days on Barrayar but then his stories had never included much mention of friends or family). They both met him at the shuttle port and he was the one to initiate their three-way kiss. He showed off his Captain tabs and Ro teased him about missing her exciting new work. They went to lunch and Lucy watched them, strangely quiet. That night as they lay together in their bed Xav glanced over at her, "I was sure you would say something about how nice it was to have a bit more room." Ro smiled into the pillow. It was always nice to have someone who cared as much as you did.  
  
"Let's get married," Lucy said. Ro propped herself up on one arm and Xav's mouth actually dropped open but Lucy just gave them her brightest (scariest) smile. In that moment Ro knew that she had already said yes. Xav didn't say anything that night and he left early the next morning but he returned that evening with a smile and a pierced ear so all they had to do was figure out how.    
  
Ro didn't really believe in anything (apart from brief flings with Platonism) and Lucy just wanted something meaningful so they turned to Xav for inspiration. It couldn't be a Barrayaran wedding (especially not the wedding of a prince but none of them mentioned that) or even particularly close but it was nice talking about what they could keep. In the end, the official who married them sighed a lot as they drew the three connecting circles and threw handfuls of groats into the air (and he made sure that they picked all of them up afterwards) but they were happy. Then the war came.   
  
Lucy and Ro had been talking about children while waiting for Xav to return home. They both looked up in surprise when he slammed through the door, face sickly pale. He didn't tell them what had happened. He only announced that he would be busy for a few days and would be staying in his quarters at the embassy for a while. They didn't need to wait for his explanation. The news channels were blaring with the invasion. 043 talked about the cruel attack on a helpless planet by the overwhelming Cetagandan force. 334 played endless documentaries on the history of the spread of the Cetagandan Empire, interspersed with a discussion by several experts on its treaty with Komarr. 641 archly commented about the likelihood of an independent Komarr lasting for very long while blocking access to Eta Barrayar. Ro held Lucy's hand they watched it all together.       
  
In the end, it was a full five days before Xav returned home. He didn't appear to have slept, or washed, the entire time. Ro shoved him into the fresher, watching carefully to make sure he didn't fall asleep. The bathroom felt oppressively silent and she wished that Lucy was there to start talking about anything. After, Xav sat at the table with a cup of coffee that was rapidly getting cold, staring down blankly at the plastic surface.   
  
"You've heard," Xav said finally. Ro thought about saying, hard not to, but she isn't particularly good at lighthearted so she simply nodded. "I'm in charge of the embassy now," he continued tonelessly, "I sent Vorramnis to try to get back to Barrayar, told him to see if he could get any orders back to us."  
  
"The Cetagandans have blocked the wormhole," Ro said because she can't say 'that's a suicide mission.' Xav was already well aware of that.  
  
"Yes," Xav said. His face was as blank as his voice. He drank some of the cold coffee. "He said we should all go back, all the Vor. It is our  _duty_ , apparently, to throw ourselves at the blockade with the knowledge that if we succeeded we could grant the ground forces all the power of a team of diplomats."     
  
"Doesn't seem the wisest choice of actions," Ro said, trying to keep her voice as calm as his.  
  
"No, but he called me a coward. Said I had become weak and Betan." He carefully didn't look at her.  
  
"I'm surprised he thought there was any difference between weak and Betan."  
  
He smiled crookedly at that, "Hidden depths. I suppose I have some too. A man disagrees with me and I send him to die. There are those in my family who would approve," he stood then and started to pace the kitchen. "I had to, though. We can help but they need to follow me and Vorramnis never would and they would take their lead from him." He looked at her then and she met his eyes evenly. They both knew she wasn't the one he needed to convince.   
  
"Do you think there'll be enough time to send help? She asked quietly.   
  
"I'm sure of it. I've been looking over all the records. Even watched some news. The Cetagandans always work the same way to take over a new planet. Massive ecological destruction or carpet city bombing just means more work for them in the long run. They target transportation systems, government buildings, communications systems; all the things poor, backwards Barrayar doesn't have." He sat back down at the table, his hands tracing an invisible map. "We don't have trains and, believe me, we have no air or traffic controllers. The Emperor is used to moving about with his army. Communications on a major scale are practically nonexistent. The Counts are used to war and so are the people. More than that, we're all used to famine and disease and all those other things the civilized worlds of the Cetagandan Empire don't have to worry about.  
  
"I'm where I can do the most good. Here on Beta Colony: the cutting edge of technology across the galaxy."   
  
"I don't know," Lucy drawled, "after your stirring speech I have a hard time imagining what this Noble Barrayar could  _possibly_  need from us over-civilized lumps of flesh." She stood in the doorway, smiling at them, and for a moment Ro knew that it was going to be okay. 


	3. don’t you know there’s a war on

For the first month after the invasion (after the war started, Xav insisted) they barely saw Xav. There was that first manic morning when he spun his determination into a reality they could create and then he was gone. Occasionally, he came back to sleep (probably because the owners of the rented embassy started turning off the temp vents at night) but he was gone by the morning with new clothes and most of Ro's coffee. The new was completely useless since it could only tell them that the Cetagandan fleet was still blocking the wormhole. Then Xav didn't show up for four days. Lucy, when Ro finally got worried enough to wonder out loud, simply shrugged and said that he needed time.  
  
Ro and Lucy had two very different ways of dealings with things. It was what made them work so well together, Lucy said (it was the only reason they could live together without Ro strangling Lucy, Marc said). After a first meeting, most people could guess that they would react differently to events. Most people, if forced to guess, would also be wrong about where the differences lay. Lucy could speak her mind clearly, and would, while Ro preferred to keep her quiet. However, after speaking her mind Lucy was content in the knowledge that she had done her part and was fine with leaving the next move up to the other person, or persons. Ro, on the other hand, tended to keep shoving through if she felt something was wrong enough for her to speak. This was probably why she found herself, yet again, standing outside the door to the Barryaran Embassy.     
  
From the outside, not much appeared to have changed. Derik, who had been assigned to semi-permanent desk duty after a particularly embarrassing moment with the honorable herm Tori, still sat at his console but his uniform had lost the crispness that always marked Barryarans to Ro. He had even allowed himself the beginnings of a scruffy beard and the bags under his eyes were almost as deep as Xav's had been the last time she had seen him. He waved her through after a halfhearted scan (and skipping entirely his usual lecture on propriety and Xav's busy schedule. Ro didn't let herself wonder about what loved ones his mind might be full of at a time like this). After that she just followed the sound of raised voices.     
  
After the departure of the former head of the Barryaran Embassy (accompanied, Xav had told them in his flattest voice, by several subordinates who wished to attempt to reunite themselves with their families) seven Barryarans, including Xav, were left on Beta Colony. This left it the largest group of Barryarans off Barrayar (and certainly the only group with such a high ranking member of the royal household) and therefore responsible for working together to help their beleaguered planet. At the moment, they seemed rather more concerned with yelling at each other.  
  
Xav sat behind his desk, looking rather worse than death warmed over. His chin was resting on top of his folded hands and Ro was sure that they were the only thing keeping his head upright. Philip, the only one of Xav's co-workers that she had been formally introduced to, was gesturing to a map of Barryar while yelling at a red haired man (she could only assume that he was the Vorsmythe Xav had occasionally mentioned) who was yelling back just as fiercely while gesturing pointedly at a map of the wormhole route from Eta Ceta to Barrayar. The last man was leaning against the wall and loudly interjecting his own comments into the others' fight. Well, she had to assume it was a fight. In some desperate nod to the complete lack of security, they were all talking in what she recognized as Barrayar's ancient, bastardized Russian dialect.   
  
Philip was the first one to notice that Ro had entered the room. He stopped in the middle of a sentence with the, hopefully, uniquely Barryaran expression of man suddenly confronted with an unwelcome reminder of the existence of women when suddenly presented with one outside of her 'proper place.' Vorsmythe quickly spoke, loud in Philip's sudden silence, before he noticed Ro and also fell quiet. The stranger leaning against the far wall followed his compatriots gaze and stared blankly at her as though, in this month of horrible events, this was possible the worst. Even Xav managed to turn his head enough to look at her without collapsing on his desk. The overall effect was deeply unnerving.    
  
"Ro," Xav said finally, with the careful pronunciation that came with drunkenness or complete exhaustion, "what are you doing here." Ro paused. The truth, that she was there to make sure he got some sleep before he fell into a disused lift shaft, wouldn't work. She could just imagine the sneers she would receive at the implication that a Barryaran soldier could feel such a paltry thing as exhaustion. If Xav did go with her he would lose the respect of the men to whom the idea of common sense plus a woman resulted only in weakness. Usually those were the type of men whose respect she wouldn't care about but Barrayar placed a dangerous power in honor. On the other hand, she was very bad at lying. Even lies of omission at birthdays tended to leave her red in the face. Still. Barryarans weren't the only ones to understand duty.  
  
"I came looking for you," Ro could already feel her face flushing and that was true, "you have an ambassadorial dinner tonight that you seem to have forgotten and I was sent to make sure you'll be ready and you're obviously not so we'll have to go back home." Vorsmythe looked like he was about to protest but Ro was the only one in the room who had gotten a good night’s sleep and she had already grabbed Xav and had started propelling him toward the door before she had even managed to stop babbling. The sight of their half-collapsed Captain and a vaguely official sounding excuse was enough to keep them quiet long enough for Ro to get Xav shambling away under his own power (and the fact that he hadn't said anything about the 'dinner' excuse was reason enough to have grabbed him). Derik opened the door for them which might be signaling the start of the coup but she suspected the true reason was much more likely to involve some Barryaran law about guards not sleeping while their commander was in residence.       
  
Ro called Lucy in the tube. Lucy, unsurprisingly, found the whole story hysterically funny and actually tipped her chair over at one point in the midst of a spasm of laughter, briefly disappearing from view, but she promised to return home as fast as she could. Xav drifted off as the drifted down; with a swiftness that made Ro sure that he had been using some sort of stimulant to keep himself awake. When they stopped she was glad of their apartment's closeness to the tube and of Xav's uneven childhood diet that had left him small enough for her to drag him behind her. Ro only had to wait ten minutes or so in the doorway before Lucy arrived, panting from having taken the stairs at a run. Together, they managed to wrestle Xav onto the couch.     
  
It took eight hours for Xav to wake up but when he did he sat up with a jolt and fell off of the couch. Lucy, whose timing was annoyingly good, entered three seconds later. Ro had been working nearby (occasionally checking on Xav to make sure whatever he had taken hadn't made him stop breathing) but she shut down her paper and turned to watch him. He stood up, realized he was standing in his underwear and grabbed the fallen blanket from the floor. For twenty four seconds, as measured by the smiling cat clock Marc had bought them as an apartment warming gift, they stood at an impasse: Ro behind the desk, Lucy in the doorway and Xav standing in the middle of the room, staring back and forth.   
  
"Well," Lucy said finally, "you missed it. In those eight hours you just wasted sleeping Barrayar fell and was named the latest outpost of the Cetagandan Empire. If you had only been awake you could have stopped it from happening with the psychic energy that was obviously the only thing stopping Barrayar from being completely overrun." Xav sighed and collapsed back onto the couch.  
  
"As always, Lucy, you make your points most elegantly," he said. "I'm sorry I haven't been around -"  
  
"You're sorry you haven't been around!" Lucy cut in with an gesture so violent that Ro was surprised she didn't accidentally hit the wall.   
  
"Yes," Xav offered hesitantly, obviously completely unprepared to face Lucy's quickly rising temper.  
  
"Don't you dare act like we're upset because you have been around!" Lucy snarled. "What, we're so sad that no one is around to make sure the sex is reasonably simple for our old age. No one's there to eat half a piece of bread and then leave the rest sitting on the counter like someone would want to eat your half chewed remains." Lucy was quickly approaching a full blown rant and, Ro felt, forgetting the main thrust of the argument as she did so, so Ro quickly cut in.     
  
"What Lucy means to say is that we aren't concerned with the state of our relationship -"  
  
"Damn right, you know on  _some_  planets you can get a divorce without have to recite the whole legal code in four languages and adding proof that your spouse has killed your father-"  
  
"But more for your health," Ro continued quickly, "the destruction of which will not help anyone at all."  
  
"You're right," Xav said. He sank down into the cushions, looking on the verge of tears. "There's just so much to do. We're getting reports from all our embassies, and from a few other places, about what we know and that's turning out to be practically nothing. The Cetagandans' have blockaded the wormholes and we've gotten nothing from Komarr. I've been trying to figure out how we can get supplies through and I'm not even sure what is needed most, not to mention I'm not sure how we're going to _get_  any of these supplies. We were supposed to start drawing up plans for building out own embassy and now I'm not sure we'll have enough funds to pay off the rent beyond next month."  
  
"Look," Lucy said, setting down on the couch beside him, anger completely gone. "Just do one thing at a time or nothing will get done. The rent is easy; declare the Embassy a government in exile or something and the president will fund your stay as long as you need."  
  
Xav stared at her in horror. "'Government in Exile,' that's the last thing I should, or could, do. That's practically treason. Actually, I think it  _is_  treason."    
  
Ro spoke; Lucy's eyes were starting to roll dangerously again. "Not government in exile then, but it's the right sort of idea. You're not a ruling body separate from you country, or planet, but you are a cut off group that serves as a representative of an attacked planet and there'll be some sort of support. It's not like Cetaganda is particularly popular. 'Poor' Barrayar is getting a nice showing right now. Plus, it's an election year." She took their smiles at that as a victory. "We'll help you but you have to promise to sleep."  
  
Xav did sleep. He slept and ate full meals and crammed in work every second he could. He brought home data chips and drew ever more complex lines on the planetary map place-mat that Lucy had bought for the table. "I could have never done this before," he told Ro late one night as he piled up napkins to represent the Dendarii Mountains, "for the first time in my life Barrayar isn't watching."   
  
"Beta Colony could be," Ro suggested and he grinned, looking younger than he has for a long time.  
  
"Doesn't matter, this is what I want them to know."   
  
They went to dinners and balls and events that Ro always thinks of as cocktail parties, even if they probably have some other, official, name. They go _together_  in a way they didn't before and Xav wears his long hair and sarong and, very rarely, body paint like he was born to it, Betan to the inch (another gift from Barrayar's bleeding). Lucy hunted down an uncle who designed flighers and they have him round to dinner every week. Ro determinedly crammed down the history of every planet in the Cetgandan Empire and talks lightly with various disgruntled groups and drops in on merchants who have traveled the important supply routes. Xav hunted down every export and import of Barrayar and wrote careful letters about the wide reach of Cetagandan power and the technological competition it provided ("now that will hit them right in the conscience," Lucy muttered) to whatever political party will speak to him.        
  
Two years into the war Xav came home with a report of an explosion set off in an occupied portion of Vorbar Sultana. It started a fire that took three days to extinguish. Flash bombs aren't exactly the cutting edge of technology but it was a sign that the message had gotten through and they celebrated that night with drinks and a brief break from the all-consuming purpose. "I'm glad," Lucy whispered later, Xav breathing deeply beside her, "I'm glad that she won't be able to go to Barrayar." Ro held her wife and thought of a burning city and was glad too.   
  
Xav had been ecstatic at the news. In quiet moments following his face would break out into a smile and he spent an inordinate amount of time staring at Lucy's stomach until she hit him with a pillow and said that she would be sure to inform him of any changes but it's a pretty certain thing that he'll notice. For a while, the work of the war was almost a relief in that it kept him too busy to spend  _too_  much time pulling out measuring tape, organizing dietary plans and reading every parenting book he can find at them (as if they hadn't all passed the test). He made time to go to the nurturing classes and it took several strong words from Lucy to get him to stop trying to cut her out entirely from everything that was going on with the war. In comparison, Ro liked to think that she was very sensible about the whole thing.  
  
It was quite nice when Lucy's maternal leave kicked in. Lucy had picked up a volume of Barryaran epic poetry and split her time between checking in on their ever growing network and being utterly appalled at Barryaran literature. Ro did her work with only brief bouts of obsessive baby proofing and some very minimal soppy smiling at Lucy. Xav could easily stop in with the latest carefully balanced meal and a stack of files (the rest of the embassy took his visits to his unborn offspring with much greater enthusiasm than they had greeted his trips to see his wives but Ro was happy that there were parts of the Barryaran psyche that remained a mystery).   
  
Olivia's birth didn't lower Xav's interest at all (not that Ro had really thought it would except during some of the bad times after she's read a bit too much about Barrayar and couldn't help wondering if he'll disappear with the arrival of his daughter). Lucy said it was remarkable that Olivia learned to crawl at all considering the amount of time she spent in her father's arms but, truthfully, they're all rather typically clingy first time parents and the only times you can't find Olivia in her father's arms you can be almost sure it's because she' with her mothers.   
  
The invasion was heading towards the start of its fifth year when they get their first big break. The Cetagandans had agreed to let a vid crew though the blockade to show the universe that they were keeping within the boundaries of acceptable warfare. Derik had spent years memorizing technical plans and some basic propaganda. They all went together to watch his shuttle take off. That night, like every night, Xav tucked Olivia into her bed with stories of Barrayar to fill her dreams and then they curled together and the couch and try to breathe. The footage returned to a disinterested populace (five years in, most Betans barely remembered that Ceteganda had invaded some planet) but Derik was replaced by a different young man with fresh scars beneath his shirt and true stories of the war and for a week Xav walked on air.   
  
Still, the war went on. They got images now, of varying quality and focus. Xav sat with Olivia on his lap and showed her pictures of his home and then, later, scanned the footage for any trace of someone he might know. Stephan's information was added to the collection. The mountains were death traps for the Cetagandans and hid many civilians. There had been some rough winters (but worse for them than for us, sir). Prince Yuri leads daring raids against the Cetagandan homes that are being built in the middle of the city. The modification of lightflyeres and the building of zap bombs had already begun by the time he had left.      
  
Xav celebrated fifteen years on Beta Colony and they started working for their second child permit. Olivia was six years old and every bit her father's daughter and the Cetagandan ambassador to Beta Colony made pointed remarks about mercenaries wile Xav offered up his blandest smile. Ro worked on her book and thought that it was a better life than she could have imagined.  
  
By the time Sonia was born the Barryaran resistance had struggled along for thirteen years longer than anyone had ever imagined it could. Xav received regular reports (and doesn't bring them home) and tells Olivia about everything he will show her when they can go back home. Lucy sighed at this but they've all poured too many years of their lives into Barrayar to not go and see. Still, Ro understood Lucy's hesitation, as she hugged their daughters she shared in it fully.  
  
The day the war ended Xav bought five tickets to Escobar. As they waited for the jump he practiced Barryaran pronunciation with Olivia as Sonia dragged Philip into a complex card game of her own devising. Ro leaned her head on Lucy's shoulder and thought of the wounded planet whose struggle she had steeped herself in and yet had never visited. That night, after Olivia had fallen asleep and Lucy had zipped herself up with Sonia to hold back nightmares, Xav held her hand and whispered of their son running beneath the open sky.  


End file.
